


Your Love Was Handmade For Somebody Like Me

by stylinshaw



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, M/M, Multiverse, Phan references everywhere, but also reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-15 20:02:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9254207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stylinshaw/pseuds/stylinshaw
Summary: When Dan meets a guy with strangely familiar eyes at Starbucks, he starts to recollect memories. Only, the memories aren't his.(Or are they?)





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote all of this in one night from like one to four in the morning. This was probably a result of me reading too much merlin fanfic tbh- but it was really fun to write!
> 
> Title - Shape Of You by Ed Sheeran because honestly i've been listening to it nonstop since it came out. the lyrics don't really have anything to do with the fic!
> 
> Disclaimer - d&p aren't mine
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Starbucks is crowded, as it always is, at half past seven in the morning. People in suits and dresses hurry out of the door clutching takeaway cups, frazzled students type furiously at their laptops, clutching mugs of tea. It’s familiar, a scene Dan sees every day on his way to work at his dreary law firm.

Today’s different, though. He felt it when he woke up that morning. He feels it now, stronger, as he enters the coffee shop. He’s at the register, his usual order of a grande flat white to go at the tip of his tongue. The cashier, whom he sees thrice a week, also seems ready to bill for the drink he always gets.

Something stops him, though.

“One grande caramel macchiato, hot, to go, please,” he hears himself saying, as he pulls his wallet out of his pocket. Caramel macchiato? The fuck? He’s never had the drink before- he certainly wasn’t expecting to have one today, disrupting his morning routine. Even the cashier looks surprised, but she rings up his order anyway. Dan sighs, mentally accepting his fate as he pays and moves to the side to wait for his drink.

“Grande caramel macchiato!” As soon as he hears the words, Dan’s moving forward, fingers closing around the cardboard cup. Only, he realises, he’s wrapping his fingers around someone else’s.

“Sorry!” he says, jerking his hand away. He looks up.

The man holding his drink has black hair, swooped perfectly to the side in a fringe Dan only wishes his hair could be like. He’s dressed casually, in jeans and a short-sleeved button-down, in contrast to Dan’s white shirt and slacks. He’s hot. Incredibly so. But that isn’t what Dan is distracted by.

The guy’s _eyes_. They’re captivating. They’re blue, yellow, green and grey all at once, swirls of colour mixing together all in one piercing gaze. The moment Dan’s eyes meet his, he’s hit by a wave of déjà vu so hard he almost staggers back. Visions of a train station, one that he hasn’t been to before, flood his mind.

“Caramel macchiato for Dan?” A voice breaks through Dan’s hazy thoughts. It’s the barista, looking thoroughly unimpressed. Dan grabs his drink with unsteady hands, mumbling out a thanks.

“Dan,” Dan jumps at the sound of his name being said, turning to see the hot guy with a contemplative look on his face. “Hey, we have the same taste in drinks!”

“I guess we do,” Dan replies, though they really don’t. He takes a sip of the drink, though, just for good measure.

And it’s fucking _amazing._ Dan doesn’t know why he’s been wasting his time on flat whites when he could’ve been drinking _this_. Out of habit, he checks the time on his phone, only to realise he only has five minutes to make the ten-minute journey to work.

“Oh, fuck,” he chokes out, through a mouthful of coffee. “Sorry, lovely meeting you, but I’m late for work.” He’s already hallway out the door by the time he’s done speaking, leaving a very confused-looking hot guy in his wake. Every nerve in his body, every thought on his mind, is telling him to turn back. But he follows his rational thinking, rather than his heart.

As he hails a cab, he realises he never got the hot guy’s name.

*

_Dan’s sat at his desk, his laptop in front of him. He clicks on the browser icon and opens twitter mindlessly, not really expecting to see anything new. He does have one new notification, though. Interestedly, he clicks on the notification tab. Probably a spam bot or something._

_‘_ @AmazingPhil is now following you!’ _Below that, is two tweets. To him. From AmazingPhil._

 _Dan almost screams. He almost does. The only reason he doesn’t is because there are other people at home. His heart is racing as he reads the tweets, typing out replies of his own with shaking fingers. Holy crap. Holy fucking crap. AmazingPhil. Followed_ him _._

Dan opens his eyes, breathing heavily. As though his dream had really happened. As though someone called ‘AmazingPhil’ had followed him on Twitter, ages ago by the looks of the technology in his dream.

Leaning over, he grabs his phone from his bedside while simultaneously rubbing his eyes to wake himself up. Curiously, he opens the Twitter app and types in @AmazingPhil. There aren’t many results, but there is one account with the same username. Someone called Phil Lester, apparently. Dan clicks on the profile, wondering what made this person show up in his dream.

Hold on.

Dan _recognises_ the person in the profile picture. He recognises the artfully swept fringe. He recognises those fucking _eyes_.

How the hell did he know who hot Starbucks guy was? The guy doesn’t have tons of followers, only a couple hundred, similar to Dan’s. There’s no way Dan could’ve known the hot guy-Phil’s-name. Yet, here he is, on the same guy’s Twitter at four in the morning, despite not knowing his name prior to this moment.

Something’s going on. Something he doesn’t know about. Dan’s too tired to think about it though, so he shuts his phone down and sinks back into his duvet, willing himself to sleep.

And if he dreams of blue eyes and raven black hair, well. No one has to know.

*

“Grande caramel macchiato, hot, to go, thanks,” Dan recites to the cashier. It’s the same girl as yesterday, behind the register. She cocks an eyebrow at him.

“Changed your drink of choice, huh?” she asks. Dan shrugs half-heartedly, offering an awkward smile. She smiles politely back. He steps aside quickly.

 _Well, that was awkward_ , he thinks. _Human interaction._

The sense of déjà vu returns- if he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine himself ranting about how awkward he is to millions of people. Why can he imagine that? What the fuck is wrong with him?

He’s pulled out of his mind once again, by the same barista as yesterday, holding his drink in his hand. Dan grabs it gratefully, and starts to head to the door.

“Dan, right?” Dan swivels around so fast, that his drink almost spills over his hand. Blessedly, it doesn’t, and Dan’s left staring into hot guy- _Phil’s_ -eyes yet again.

Dan clears his throat. “Yup, that’s me,” he says. God, Phil is attractive. “Sorry I disappeared yesterday, I really was late for work.”

“That’s okay,” Phil responds, a smile playing on the corners of his lips. “I’m Phil, by the way.”

 _I know,_ is what Dan wants to say. But he can’t say that, obviously, so he says the next best thing instead, decide to follow his heart over rational thinking this time. Screw rational thinking.

“Want to go for a walk?”

*

Phil, Dan finds out, is as perfect as he looks. He works for the BBC as a radio host (Monday nights at 9pm), is obsessed with video games (just like Dan), loves Japan (just like Dan), and loves Muse (just like Dan!).

He phones in to work, letting them know he’s ‘sick’. Phil chastises him teasingly for lying, and for some reason Dan feels like they’ve done this before, bantered back and forth effortlessly without a single thought.

But then again, déjà vu is all Dan’s been feeling since he met Phil. So he ignores it. Every time Phil says something that for some reason, Dan feels like he should already know, he represses it. He lets himself enjoy their date, or whatever the hell this is.

Finally, Phil walks him back to his doorstep. The evening sun casts a warm glow around them.

“Today was great,” Phil says earnestly. “Thank you, Dan.”

Dan smiles. “I’ll be honest with you,” he begins. “This was the most fun I’ve ever had.” He doesn’t know what compels him to say those words exactly, but upon hearing them, Phil freezes.

Then he’s being wrapped in what may possibly be the tightest hug he’s ever received in his life. It almost feels like he’s being tackled by a hug.

Phil pulls away, arms still encircled around Dan’s waist. “See you later, Dan,” he whispers. He presses a soft kiss against Dan’s lips before walking away.

Dan touches his lips giddily. He doesn’t know what just happened, but he’s more than okay with it.

*

After that, he sees Phil all the time. At least, he wants to. They live on opposite sides of London, and their jobs make it difficult for them to meet often.

So they resort to skyping whenever they can. The first time Dan receives a video call from Phil, he almost faints with the nerves that overcome him. He’d straightened his hair meticulously, making sure every strand was pin-straight. He’d cleaned his room- the parts of it that would show on camera, anyway. He’d worn his nicest clothes.

All for a damn Skype call. But Dan can remember doing the exact same thing, in a room much browner than his and with a much shittier laptop than the one he’s got now. He ignores the memories that pop up in his mind randomly now, because Phil obviously doesn’t get the same- _premonitions_ , or whatever. Dan chalks it up to him having a suspiciously active imagination and that’s it.

Their Skype calls are great, of course. Dan doesn’t think anything can _not_ be great with Phil. They talk for hours on end, about nothing and everything, laughing and dozing off with the other person on the line. One night, they even get up to five hours and forty-two minutes before Phil has to go. It’s perfect.

So why does Dan feel like he’s living his life two times over?

*

After a few weeks, Dan finds himself in Phil’s bedroom for the very first time. At this point, its unsurprising that Dan recognises certain items- the checked duvet on Phil’s bed, for example, is pretty much the same as Dan’s own covers but in green and blue rather than brown and grey. Poorly cared-for houseplants litter the house. Without looking, Dan knows that Phil has a Buffy CD inserted in his DVD player.

“So, have you been a Londoner all your life?” Dan says conversationally, leaning back onto Phil’s pillow.

Phil shakes his head. “I’m from Manchester.”

“I’m from Reading, originally,” Dan replies. “Can you imagine trying to meet if we lived that far away?”

Dan can imagine it. With frightening clarity. He visualises himself boarding a train to Manchester Piccadilly Station, fiddling with his hair. He visualises Phil waiting at the platform, standing out amongst the crowd because of his height and dark hair. He visualises them hugging, and the world condensing into that one moment, just the two of them on a train platform Dan’s never actually seen before.

Phil fixes his gaze onto Dan’s face. “I can, actually. I can imagine it perfectly.”

And in that moment, Dan knows that they’re thinking of the same memory. One that never happened.

What is he supposed to do now?

*

As it turns out, he doesn’t have to do anything. The next day, they wake up at have breakfast as usual. Dan spends most of the morning trying not to doze off in various places, such as his bowl of cereal, or Phil’s couch.

“Someone’s tired,” Phil remarks, after Dan lets out his umpteenth yawn of the day. “Do you want to go back to sleep?”

Dan sighs. “Maybe,”

“Well, come on, then,” Phil stands up, and the two of them eventually find themselves back in Phil’s bed. “I’ll cuddle you to sleep, Bear.”

 _Bear._ Bear, like his childhood nickname. One no one should know, except those extremely close to him.

Dan shoots up, suddenly wide awake. Phil jumps back, eyes wide in bewilderment.

“What’s wrong, Dan?” he asks, worry evident in his tone. Dan merely stares at Phil, calculatingly.

“There’s no way you could’ve known,” he mutters. “How the fuck-“

“Dan?” There’s the start of a question in Phil’s voice. Suddenly, a whole lot of things slot into place, starting with the way Phil had frozen before hugging him the first time they’d hung out.

“Phil,” Dan says. “Who kissed who first?”

“ _What_?”

“Who kissed who first,” Dan repeats. “Did I kiss you, or did you kiss me?”

Phil stares at him. Comprehension dawns on his facial features.

“You did, Dan,” he murmurs. “On the Manchester Eye.”

That’s not what happened at all. Not in this world, anyway.

The relief that washes over Dan is so palpable he almost passes out. “Fucking hell, Phil. Who are we?”

“We’re who we’ve always been,” Phil says, in answer. “We’re Dan and Phil.”

*

Now that they know of each other’s awareness, memories come faster and clearer. Dan almost cries the first time he realises he _can_ do better than law, he can help and inspire more people without a law degree than he can with one. Phil’s glad there’s a reason he always feels so alone while presenting his radio show.

What doesn’t come, however, is an explanation as to why they’re stuck in this universe. They’re lying in Dan’s bed one day, on the brink of sleep, when Phil starts humming a tune.

 _“Without the internet, we never would have met,”_ Dan sings along, absent-mindedly. “Hm. I guess that’s not true, is it. We met here, without the assistance of the Interwebs.”

Phil laughs into Dan’s hair. “I guess so.”

“How are we going to get back to our normal lives, Phil?” Dan whispers. “Are we going to be stuck here forever? You, a radio host, me, a lawyer?”

“We’ll find a way,” Phil promises. Dan finds himself believing the words blindly, placing his trust in Phil completely, just as he’s always done. Satisfied, he curls into Phil and drifts off to sleep.

*

_“Without the internet, we never would have met,” Dan sing-songs as he hops onto the bed. “We’d never be here on a stage, doing things we might regret!”_

_“Dan, I’ve heard enough of that song for a lifetime,” Phil groans out from below the monochrome duvet. “Let’s go to sleep, please?”_

_Dan caves instantly. Maybe it’s because he can never say no to Phil. Maybe it’s because of Phil’s wide eyes and pout. Either way, he’s cuddled up to Phil in a matter of seconds, his hand stroking through the older man’s hair._

_“Crazy how we owe literally everything to the internet, though,” Dan says softly, referring to the lyrics of their song. “Do you think we would’ve met if I hadn’t incessantly tweeted you?”_

_“We’re soulmates here, why wouldn’t we be in any other universe?” Phil says sleepily. Dan’s heart swells, as Phil continues. “We would’ve found a way.”_

_“Okay,” Dan murmurs. “I love you.”_

_“I love you too,” is the last thing Dan hears, before he falls asleep._

_He wakes up in a different bed._

Dan sits up abruptly. Phil’s in bed with him, but Phil was in bed with him before he went to sleep in both universes. Looking around frantically, he relaxes fractionally as he sees things that weren’t there in their alternate lives, like his collection of plushies or his gigantic mirror.

“Why are you awake?” Phil demands groggily from next to him. There’s a pause, and then he’s shooting up next to Dan, staring at their surroundings.

They sit in silence for a long moment. Finally, Phil shifts. “That wasn’t a dream, was it?” His words are quiet.

“It wasn’t for me.” Dan’s reply is equally quiet. “It’s like what you said. We would’ve found a way without the internet.”

Whatever they have between them, it was powerful enough to transcend time itself. The realisation is gratifying- Dan can already feel about half of his existential crises evaporating.

“Well then, Dan Howell, now that we know we’re literally bound together forever,” Phil says. “Do you want to get some sleep?”

As they roll back into the sheets, Dan finds that he doesn’t have a problem with either of those things.

**Author's Note:**

> comments/kudos are LOVE! check out my [blog](http://altphan.tumblr.com) if you'd like :)
> 
> thank you so much for reading!


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